Tag: social work

Almost 20 years after she became one of Spalding University’s first graduate-level social work students, Shannon Cambron has ascended to the top leadership position in the School of Social Work.

Cambron, who holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Spalding and has been a member of its social work faculty since 2004, was promoted to become the School of Social Work’s new permanent chair in July after spending last year as the acting chair. She previously served nine years as director of Spalding’s Bachelor of Science in Social Work (BSSW) program.

“It’s humbling,” Cambron said. “This is a university that has invested in me, has shown a commitment to me and has given me the opportunity to come back and engage and share that commitment with other students. … I feel I’ve been given this privilege, this mantle to take this school that has meant so much to me and to so many in the community and help elevate it to a place that it can reach even more people and prepare even more students to do even greater work.”

It’s been part of a big 2018 for Cambron, who also was selected for the Louisville Leadership Center’s Bingham Fellows, from which she’ll graduate on Jan. 17. The group of civic leaders has been working all year on projects related to the theme of “A Safe and Thriving City: Strengthening Our Community’s Ability to Prevent Violence.” The topic aligns with Cambron’s expertise relating to racial equity and her research pertaining to youth gun violence.

Spalding Provost Dr. Joanne Berryman said Cambron’s work in the classroom and in the community makes her a strong role model for Spalding students.

“Dr. Cambron demonstrates Spalding University’s mission in her role as teacher, mentor and coach to our students,” Berryman said. “We are proud that she was chosen to participate in the prestigious Bingham Fellows program.”

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Cambron, who holds a doctorate of education in leadership (EdD) from Spalding, is confident that Spalding can establish itself as the premier social work school in the region by building on a renewed emphasis on community engagement while developing innovative programs to meet the needs of the times in the profession. She said the School of Social Work at Spalding has a faculty of “rock stars.”

“These are people with passion and energy, who when you ask what they think about something, there’s no reticence to tell you what they think,” Cambron said. “My job is to get my track shoes on and keep up with them and help them do the things we want to do. We’re going to do some amazing things because the challenges of our community and our world require it.”

To that end, Cambron said the School of Social Work has expanded its list of elective courses for its major students, with classes related to sexuality, addiction, trauma, racism and other issues that face today’s social workers.

Cambron said Spalding plans to expand training programs for social workers, post-degree, who are interested in becoming cutting-edge, justice-oriented leaders of social service organizations and agencies. The launch for this expanded programming is set for summer of 2019.

Chauncey Burnett, who received his bachelor’s degree from the School of Social Work in June and is now in the master’s program, said Spalding’s social work programs will be in good hands with Cambron.

He said “truth” is the one word that comes to mind when he thinks of everything Cambron does and says.

He said Cambron has always been there for him and has always made him feel comfortable in opening up and expressing his ideas and concerns.

“That’s why I was able to be successful,” Burnett said. “If there’s a person I need, I can always call on Dr. Cambron.”

Involvement in Bingham Fellows

Earlier this year, upon her selection to Bingham Fellows, Cambron said that she believes she has found herself in a “phenomenal sweet spot” in her career, enjoying the opportunity to work with students at Spalding while also being encouraged by the university to maintain a role outside the classroom in social work and civic engagement.

“It’s really evident that the university is living out its mission with every opportunity it gets,” she said.

Cambron, who has served on boards and committees of the Jefferson County Juvenile Justice Advisory Council and the Race Community and Child Welfare initiative, has brought relevant experience and expertise to this year’s Bingham Fellows topic, which focuses on finding solutions to violence in the city.

In 2016, she, along with community activist Christopher 2X, held focus groups with teenagers on topics related to access to guns and the causes of violent conflicts. The project originated through their connections with University of Louisville Hospital’s trauma center, whose doctors and nurses treat victims of violence.

Cambron said some of the information she gathered from the teenagers was “eye-opening and “shocking,” especially as they discussed the ease at which young people can get access to a gun by communicating over social media and the speed at which minor conflicts can escalate when pictures, videos and messages are shared.

Cambron said it’s important that everyone in the city recognizes and understands these serious issues, regardless of whether or not they’ve personally experienced violence in their own neighborhood.

“If it happens to you, it happens to me,” she said. “If it enhances your life, it enhances my life. If it reduces your life, it reduces mine.”

Christopher 2X, who last summer received an honorary doctorate in public service from Spalding, called Cambron “a phenomenal talent.”

“With her skill sets on listening,” he said, “and then using her God-given gifts to relate back and let that person know, ‘I understand the place you’re coming from. Now let’s work on a way for a better way forward for you,’ she’s phenomenal in the way she relays that kind of message.”

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Spalding University announced Wednesday, Sept. 5, that it has reached a milestone in its ongoing, largest-ever capital fundraising campaign: surpassing $30 million in total contributions since 2014. They have supported new construction projects, facility improvements and academic and scholarship programs that broadly impact campus and student life.

The $30.4 million raised to date is a record for a Spalding campaign, and it far outpaces the original fundraising goals – $20 million by 2020 – set by the university’s board of trustees when it voted to launch the campaign four years ago. The goal was officially upped to $30 million in 2016.

“We are extremely grateful for the individuals and organizations who have stepped forward in support of our campaign and the mission and progress of Spalding,” Chief Advancement Officer Bert Griffin said. “We’ve made improvements all over campus and have not used any tuition dollars to make it happen.”

Spalding President Tori Murden McClure added: “Through this campaign, we have provided our students and the community with more resources and services while making our campus greener and more beautiful. We are grateful to our many partners who are helping us meet the needs of the times and change our community for the better.”

Some highlights of the $30 million capital campaign:

● Nearly $11 million in student scholarships and fieldwork stipends have been or will be distributed by way of the campaign, including more than $4 million in federal grants for clinical psychology and social work students from the Health Resources and Services Administration.

● More than $7 million has been donated or pledged in support of a greening initiative that has beautified the 23-acre downtown campus. Completed projects include the Mother Catherine Spalding Square green space on West Breckenridge Street between South Third and South Fourth and 2.2-acre Trager Park, which, in partnership with Louisville Gas and Electric Company and the Trager Family Foundation, opened last fall at the corner of South Second and West Kentucky. The Trager Park site was formerly an unused asphalt lot.

Ongoing outdoor projects are the seven-acre athletic fields complex between South Eighth and South Ninth streets that will be the home of Spalding’s NCAA Division III softball and soccer teams, and the Contemplative Garden at Spalding University, which will be a meditation space at 828 S. Fourth St. that is designed to honor Trappist Monk Thomas Merton and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Thanks to a recent anonymous $500,000 challenge grant, installation of the playing surfaces at the fields complex is expected to begin this fall, and it could be ready for competition by late spring 2019.

FROM WHAS: Spalding works to build Ninth Street ‘Field of Dreams’

● Kosair Charities has contributed more than $1.2 million to Spalding in support of the Kosair Charities Enabling Technologies of Kentuckiana (enTECH) assistive-technology resource center, the Auerbach School of Occupational Therapy and the Spalding School of Nursing.

RELATED: Spalding, enTECH receive $275,000 grant from Kosair Charities

● A $500,000 challenge grant from the James Graham Brown Foundation has helped raise $1 million to develop programs focused on restorative justice and restorative practices as well as Spalding’s Center for Behavioral Health.

● Nearly $1 million was raised to renovate the lower level of the Columbia Gym into a student fitness center and lounge.

● Other facilities that have undergone major improvements and modern updates are the Republic Bank Academic Center, which is the home of Spalding’s nursing and social work programs; the Spalding Library; the historic Tompkins-Buchanan-Rankin Mansion; and the Egan Leadership Center Lectorium.

Spalding University’s Columbia Gym Auditorium, 824 S. Fourth St., will be the site of the Courier Journal’s A Way Forward addiction panel discussion and information fair on Thursday, July 19 (5:30-8:30 p.m.). The event is underwritten by Find Help Now KY.

The free, public event is a part of the Courier Journal’s ongoing A Way Forward series examining solutions to Kentucky’s drug addition epidemic. According to the newspaper, the goal of the panel discussion is to “provide families with information on how to deal with addiction and how Kentuckians can find a way to solve this crisis — together.”

Here is a link to the Facebook event, and more schedule info is below.

Tiffany Cole Hall, an adjunct professor in the Spalding School of Social Work and a vice president for Volunteers of America Mid-States, will be one of the seven panelists. Hall, who oversees addiction recovery, HIV and homeless/housing services for VOAM, helped create Spalding’s addiction curriculum, and she now teaches in the program. Spalding offers a minor in addiction studies as well as numerous continuing education courses for the public that can be used toward the requirements of becoming a certified alcohol and drug counselor in Kentucky.

Hall and Volunteers of America Mid-States President Jennifer Hancock co-wrote a Courier Journal op-ed this month about addiction issues. The piece also describes the importance of college and universities like Spalding in training skilled, compassionate professionals to assist folks who are battling addiction.

If you or a loved one are battling addiction and looking for help, or just if you want to become more informed on addiction issues and the support services in our area, come check out the A Way Forward forum at Columbia Gym Auditorium.

Here is the event schedule for the evening of July 19:

5:30-6:30 p.m.: Information fair and naloxone training

Information fair participants: Centerstone, Find Help Now KY, The Healing Place, Kentucky Harm Reduction Coalition, Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness, Louisville Metro Police Department, The Morton Center, Our Lady of Peace, Renew Recovery, Spalding University, Young People in Recovery.

6:30-8:30 p.m.: Panel discussion addressing questions about prevention, recovery and solutions to our addiction epidemic, moderated by Laura Ungar, Courier Journal investigative reporter.

Panelists:

  • Terry Bunn, University of Kentucky, Find Help Now KY
  • Tiffany Cole Hall, Volunteers of America Mid-States and Spalding University School of Social Work
  • Tara Mosely, Young People in Recovery
  • Sgt. Paul Neal, Louisville Metro Police Department, Narcotics Unit
  • Dr. Charles Noplis, Renew Recovery
  • Stacy Usher, Wolfe County Coalition UNITED Against Drugs
  • Maurice Washington, Chad’s Hope Teen Challenge

Spalding University has received a federal grant of nearly $1.15 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to support advanced-level psychology and social work students who perform behavioral health work in primary care settings in medically underserved areas of Louisville.

The grant, which comes via the federal Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training program (BHWET), will provide stipends to doctoral candidates in clinical psychology (Psy.D.) and students pursuing a master’s degree in social work (MSW) who are part of Spalding’s Interdisciplinary Behavioral Health Scholars Program (IBHSP). The stipends will assist in recruitment and retention of future behavioral health professionals who do their training work in vulnerable and medically underserved areas.

Spalding, the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville were the only institutions in Kentucky to receive BHWET grants.

Spalding’s psychology and social work scholars are partnering with three Louisville health and wellness organizations to provide services. They are the Family Community Clinic, which provides medical assistance to individuals without health insurance, including many who don’t speak English, at its facility in the St. Joseph Catholic Church in Butchertown; Shawnee Christian Healthcare Center, which provides affordable primary health and dental care to patients in West Louisville; and Smoketown Family Wellness Center, which offers wellness programs in a neighborhood in which residents’ average life expectancy is 10 years below other Louisville areas, according to the center’s website.

“I am very familiar with the health care academic programs at Spalding University and find it very rewarding to know that individuals who rely on health care services will receive the quality care and attention that a partnership with Spalding will bring,” said George Fischer, founder of the Family Community Clinic. “I’m grateful to Spalding and its faculty and students for providing help to members of our community who need it.”

The grant money for Spalding students will be dispersed over four years with the funding increasing after the first year. There will be six student recipients in the first year and 10 in Years 2-4.  The psychology students will receive $28,352 each, and the social work students will receive $10,000.

“We are thrilled to have received this federal grant,” said Dr. Steve Katsikas, faculty chair of Spalding’s School of Professional Psychology and the IBHSP program director.  “Between 60 and 70 percent of all health-related problems have a behavioral component, such as smoking, living a sedentary lifestyle or eating an imbalanced diet.  The grant will allow us to partner with primary care sites in underserved parts of Louisville to provide integrated behavioral health services. Individuals who see a health care provider and need a referral will be able to immediately see a behavioral health specialist. Spalding’s schools of social work and psychology are excited about this program because it allows us to train the next generation of psychologists and social workers to make a lasting health impact in our community.”

The grant will also be used to hire a clinical coordinator and fund seminars.

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